Progress Report: A Turn of the Page

I was going to post something here along the lines of, TED WILL RETURN, or something else that kept a place holder while I went along with what has become this new chapter in my life.  Don't misunderstand, I've never stopped writing, and I never will.  But over the course of the past year or so, there have been great changes that have elicited a great morphing in lifestyles.

I've paired my writing life with a professional one, the latter of which I've been forced to undertake due to the unfortunate event of Imran Rashid suffering a stroke while undergoing a procedure to remove a brain tumor, which ended my career as a musician.  Such a thing is unimaginable, but it did happen.  Like my friend Dave Rosser once said to me, "Be careful what you feed your subconscious, because life can get pretty horrible at any moment on its own."

Dave, if you're reading this, know that I'm paraphrasing.

And so I just want to check in here and say that I have become the perfect example of the writer who now has to find the time to write, and I do just that.  My commute every day has forced me to take everything that is me with me, which means at all times I have my shoulder bag with my laptop, a paperback or other book that I'm reading at the time, and the luxury of my iPhone on which I dictate writing to myself.  That last one is a real treat, and I remember as a younger man wanting and having a tape recorder with me at all times, even though the result was often drunken bullshit.

I work for an exporting company in beautiful Homewood, Alabama, a slice of liberal hipness amidst all the tide rolling and eagle warring that I despise.  I often go to Little Professor Bookstore (pictured)  to write new pages during lunch, and my days are now complete and necessary.  When I'm not writing, I'm submitting, which are the only two activities that writers who want to get published should ever be doing.

And yes, there are new pages being produced for the first time in a few years.  This is not unheard of I guess, to have as much time pass between new material being written due to the arduous thing that is the editorial process.  But I enjoy both sides of the coin equally in their own ways, and usually when I'm sick of one I can't wait to engage in the other.

Now is no different.

Know this: E.L. Doctorow (whom I've admittedly never read) used to get up and write for two hours every morning before going to his day job.  So, there.  Work is relative.